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My wife was almost scammed seling a camera for $1500 on ebay


Ed_David
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My wife was selling a camera on ebay and got a bid , then boom, buy it now.

She got a message from the buyer who said the paypal via ebay couldn't go through, and if she could give her email to him and he would send it thru that.

Paypal emails, says to send the camera, funds are being held until its confirmed that he gets it.

And that was the scam - 

 

here's the email and I'll explain the scam and how it works:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: PayPal <service@paypalapprovalorder.com>
Date: Thu, Aug 11, 2016 at 1:27 PM
Subject: PayPal Tracking Number Required***You can now post the item
To: [REDACTED]

 


 

PayPal. Safer. Simpler. Smarter.

Use your debit or credit card without revealing your details to retailers.

Speed through checkout without the need to enter your card number or postal address.

Send money to family and friends for free.


 

Make sure you ship to the buyer's desire address ONLY.

Make sure you’re using the latest Internet browser.

 

 


 

Payment has been received - You can now post the item
 

Dear ThinPlace|Pictures,



You've received a payment, detailed below. We've placed a temporary hold on the funds for this transaction.


eBay and PayPal are working together to make it safer than ever to buy on eBay. One of the boldest steps is to identify transactions that pose the greatest risk of fraud and holding the payments from sellers for a period of time to help ensure that the transaction go smoothly.


We'll release the payment for the eBay item if either of the following occurs:

The shipment tracking number is received.

We confirmed item was mail by recognized courier with tracking number.(USPS Priority Mail Express 1-Day)

 

We will notify you by email when the funds are released. Once we confirmed the shipment information.


 

You are safe and secure to ship the item.

Payment Details

Amount (pending): $1,800.00 USD

Routing Code: C840-L001-Q999-T5350

Buyer's Email:   tylerwebb345@outlook.com


Buyer's Required Shipping Details
Address:

 

Barbara M Umstead

100 Oak Dr

Chicora Pennsylvania

16025.

United States

 

Yours sincerely, 
PayPal


 

For assistance contact us via email as our customer service team will be happy to assist you.
 

Copyright © 2016 PayPal. All rights reserved.

PayPal

 

 

___________

 

So this scam is stupid because the money doesn't go into her account.  Also I typed the subject line into google, and 4 other people had the same email - via rolexes, etc.  The poor scam artist could have at least modified a few words!

The better scam I almost got hit on years ago is on a macbook pro I sold - he sent the paypal, and he gave an address.  fedex noticed that address was an abandoned area of town, and the only reason I got the laptop back is that he was at lunch when he was supposed to be there to grab the computer.

So they steal the computer, then they report to paypal they never got the computer and then , they have the computer for free.

___

 

The above guy was lazy.

Anyway, in the internet age, there aren't burgulars anymore or pickpockets - there are online scammers.

Imagine if someone came to your house and stole $1500 from your place.  you would freak out.

how is this different?

 

I don't want to reference anything that went down on this forum, but this got me thinking because the person who did the fraud said he would refund money but he hasn't and he probably won't because he's involved in many, many camera scams.

He probably has at least 10 going at all times.

He probably also has some hook up in the USA and preys on people like my wife - with his knowledge of cameras too, he can be a pretty convincing buyer.

Anyway, the internet sucks.

People scam people on it a lot.

Because there is no face to face communication.  A person doesn't know what it feels like to get robbed of $1500 online because they never see that person.

No one knows how it all feels.

Anyway

I really wish Andrew Reid would jump into this.  

i feel like we all have PTSD from the event.

I know I probably encouraged some of it.  But I still feel horrible especially now that I know that one of the scam victims still hasn't gotten his money back.

 

 

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Well the above scam is fairly obvious to me for a few reasons. 1. The paypal email address looks funny, 2. The grammar is bad. 3. Paypal never usually does this.

I can see how this would trick people and I once was also almost scammed to give out all my details. I was quite tired and not thinking straight and got a Paypal scam email around the exact same time as I was doing other Paypal stuff so it seemed legit...

Best tip I can give is - NEVER click email hotlinks for Paypal or Banking, always type the real URL into your address bar. Banks and Paypal will never hotlink you to their sites.

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Easy to get around this type of scam. Personally I always login into my paypal account and check that the funds are there directly. Then I make the shipment.

I also never use any other means of payment than Paypal. If someone says that "paypal doesn't work" or ask to use Western Unions, the whole transaction goes to the BS bin.

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Agree with others, only deal through the actual paypal portal, those scammer emails look legit, but the address is always wonky and if you click through and log in they have all your into. Paypal specifies they will not do transactions like that through email. Report the fake to paypal.

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16 hours ago, tweak said:

Well the above scam is fairly obvious to me for a few reasons. 1. The paypal email address looks funny, 2. The grammar is bad. 3. Paypal never usually does this.

I can see how this would trick people and I once was also almost scammed to give out all my details. I was quite tired and not thinking straight and got a Paypal scam email around the exact same time as I was doing other Paypal stuff so it seemed legit...

Best tip I can give is - NEVER click email hotlinks for Paypal or Banking, always type the real URL into your address bar. Banks and Paypal will never hotlink you to their sites.

Indeed.

Always best to actually login to PayPal and see if the transfer is present, then transfer it to your bank account, and if you're feeling extremely cautious even wait for it to turn up there as well.

What's the recap on Ebrahim, has he refunded people or is it still ongoing?

In 5 years of EOSHD I have never seen something this weird from an established DVXUser member like he was, and a regular poster here and at RedUser. How was this handled over at DVXUser? Did anyone consider that maybe with all the termoil in Egypt, something happened to the real Ebrahim at some point and his stuff stolen. It could even be somebody completely different behind the screen.

There's no need to not trust anyone ever again - just exercise simple, basic caution when sending money to someone especially if they are outside of your country or in an unstable one - and always use your PayPal account and not a wire transfer.

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27 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

Indeed.

Did anyone consider that maybe with all the termoil in Egypt, something happened to the real Ebrahim at some point and his stuff stolen. It could even be somebody completely different behind the screen.

There's no need to not trust anyone ever again - just exercise simple, basic caution when sending money to someone especially if they are outside of your country or in an unstable one - and always use your PayPal account and not a wire transfer.

Will the real iBrahim please stand up?

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He did post on RedUser...link to it in DVXUser...so he's still working the sympathy angle...his post linked to someone on Red forum who has some medical problems...I don't visit the Red forum, but apparently his post was taken down there...possibly time for law enforcement?...he will not stop...was simply mining for sympathy on Red forum...as he was doing here after getting caught....the moment he noticed some members warming to him here, he really went to work on the poor kid angle

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My goodness, it just gets worse.

Whilst I was Italy I did read some of what went on and thought the community handled it brilliantly and thanks to my mods too like Andy Lee.

Hopefully we can move on from this guy and get back to sanity.

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1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

My goodness, it just gets worse.

Whilst I was Italy I did read some of what went on and thought the community handled it brilliantly and thanks to my mods too like Andy Lee.

Hopefully we can move on from this guy and get back to sanity.

 

Moderators such as Andy Lee had the right timing and words for moderation up their sleeves.

It´s back to sanity thanks to all of you. What more can one say and assume. It has all been said in that super long thread for that matter.

It´s all back to sanity. And maybe I am not the only exited soul around here, eager to read about your filming journey, also some techy stuff about

the XC10, if that is not too geeky though:) About Italy, your experiences over there, everything! Would be just great!

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6 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Indeed.

Always best to actually login to PayPal and see if the transfer is present, then transfer it to your bank account, and if you're feeling extremely cautious even wait for it to turn up there as well.

What's the recap on Ebrahim, has he refunded people or is it still ongoing?

In 5 years of EOSHD I have never seen something this weird from an established DVXUser member like he was, and a regular poster here and at RedUser. How was this handled over at DVXUser? Did anyone consider that maybe with all the termoil in Egypt, something happened to the real Ebrahim at some point and his stuff stolen. It could even be somebody completely different behind the screen.

There's no need to not trust anyone ever again - just exercise simple, basic caution when sending money to someone especially if they are outside of your country or in an unstable one - and always use your PayPal account and not a wire transfer.

To my knowledge he has still not paid back one person, even though I believe Ed David wired him some money to help out. Not 100% sure about that so maybe ED can confirm. Also the range finder that he did eventually send to the other 2 turned out to be a prototype with a non standard thread on the back which may have caused some issues with them trying to sell it.

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Not wanting to be cynical, but did anyone seriously actually think he would ever pay anyone back at all. He's overshot his timeframe to pay (after some extremely mature and generous lee-way offered by this community) it's time to hand over the evidence (IP's, his place of work and confessions of the crime committed etc.) to the relevant authorities and start the long process of rehabilitation for him - no punishment, no learn I'm afraid. He obviously thinks he has one over on the lot of you, sadly for him, he may have a surprise coming.

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Nope, not surprised at all, like I said before...

Quote

That's the danger with this digital age, people just think they can get away with anything, because it's only the digital realm and you're safely behind your keyboard, thousands of miles away, possibly on another continent. Well. This just shows. Actions have consequences. As real in the digital as in the actual world we live in. The lies upon lies upon lies and playing victim doesn't convince me this guy is going to be on the right track anytime soon, especially him wanting forummembers to lie for him so he comes off as a saint. It's not having a statue that makes a Saint. It's the actions and road leading to him deserving one. It's: fess up and make amends. Rather than make excuses, work hard to become a better person. I don't know, I don't see much acknowledging of him really understanding what he did, he still wants to forget it ever happened and go back to the way things were. That doesn't make you a better person, that makes you the same person who likes the easy ways out of things. Looks like he feels sorry for himself (that his actions caught up to him, that he left room for error for that to happen), but not for the others involved. If you did something bad, you're supposed to feel shit and be held accountable for it. 'Ah, my bad, but all is forgiven, right?' is a fairytale world. You do the crime, you pay the time.

Also, every day in the newspapers here there's new reports of people getting conned. The other day it was someone who got told she was being haunted by ghosts and there was a way for spiritual cleansing. A costly way as it turned out. A lot of the time it's oldies that give thousands to 'family members' in financial distress that they've never heard of or met. Or just gullible women who've fallen to victim to the smooth talk of some guy on the interw3bs. Yet, there doesn't seem to be an end to it. You'd expect people by now to have their guards up way high and be suspicious of everything. I know I'm bordering paranoia that way. But no. There's people who prey on the weak and you just can't let them. You just got to have a healthy dose of alertness and common sense. It's good to spread awareness that these kind of things happen. When are people going to learn? At some point I'm almost thinking 'well, if you didn't see the alarmbells going of from the get-go, maybe you deserve it'. I know people want to walk through life without any worries, but it can't hurt sometimes to second guess someone's motives when it comes to some more serious money. Luckily, occassionally I do also read about people who go along with these scams and get the cops involved immediately. Usually it indeed turns out they've been running multiple practices like it. These people really are the scum of the earth.

Anyways. That was more a general thing, not really specific to what has happened around here... catch me in a good hakuna matata-mood and I'd be inclind to be like 'no worries, I know you're good for it' too. I mean, you've been a part of a community together for so long, you think you can to some extent get a reading on people. Although when faced with excuses and having to send money to the continent that is Africa through Western Union, I'd probably would've been like 'sorry, but that's just something I'm not comfortable with'...

ES thought he was untouchable, Boasted about it on the internet and now still thinks he's in the clear? I really do believe in Karma. If he doesn't right his wrongs it will eventually catch up with him. I'm still hoping for the guys to get this over with the easy way soon rather than the hard way, the long way, but I'm not really convinced. I invite ES to prove me wrong, to stop the lies and excuses once and for all and return that what was stolen in the soonest of matters.

Just be safe, guys. If you put yourself in a vulnerable position, don't make the jump unless you've ensured there are some nets in place to catch you if something goes wrong. ;)

 

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